Garba Shehu goofs as Twitter picks Ghana as African HQ

On Monday, Twitter co-founder and CEO, Jack Dorsey, announced that it had finally set up an office on the continent of Africa, in Ghana.

“Twitter is now present on the continent. Thank you Ghana and President Nana Akufo-Addo,” he tweeted.

Nigerians instantly took to social media to make their opinions known about the social networking service’s decision to make Ghana its African headquarters, instead of Nigeria.

Reacting, Ghana’s President thanked Twitter for its decision, adding that he had met with Dorsey and he was confident the move would be the beginning of new things.

Akufo-Addo tweeted, “The choice of Ghana as HQ for Twitter’s Africa operations is excellent news. The government and Ghanaians welcome very much this announcement and the confidence reposed in our country.”

The development, however, caused a series of reactions on Twitter which is believed to be the most radical social network.

The current regime led by President Muhammadu Buhari, has in recent time sought stiffer penalties for persons who “misuse social media”.

The Senate is currently deliberating on Protection from Internet Falsehood and Manipulations Bill 2019 commonly known as the Anti-social media bill.

It seeks to criminalise the use of the social media in peddling false or malicious information. It was sponsored by Senator Mohammed Musa, a member of the President’s party, the All Progressives Congress.

Another member of the President’s party, Adamu Garba, had last year sued Twitter for supporting the #EndSARS protests, but he later withdrew the case.

Reacting to the development on Monday, Garba tweeted, “I pray Ghanaians would not allow their country to be used as a platform for the orchestration of nuisance on the African internet space.

“Nigeria is safer with the hypocrisy of Twitter. We shall have to improve on our methods for elimination of fake news on the information space.

“They just hate Nigeria because they know that the only country that can be the next African super power, fully democratic, highly mobile population and good working age population is Nigeria

“Twitter came to Ghana to target the Nigerian market. They won’t admit they need us, but we know.”

A member of the Peoples Democratic Party, Oke Umurhohwo tweeted, “Another Big L for Nigeria who despite having the biggest active social media users, we got overlooked for Ghana. This is obviously because of the anti-business policies of APC and Buhari. Shameful!”

@ananabannamdi tweeted, “Largely based on textbook definition, Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa and probably the largest social media engaging ecosystem in Africa as well. Sadly, the nature of political hijacking, state capture, bad governance and more decadence has made us chop another “L” again!”

“But Jack, Nigeria has one of the biggest Twitter presence in Africa. Don’t worry, FG will make ease of doing business much better,” @Morris_Monye tweeted.

However, Buhari’s aide, Tolu Ogunlesi, downplayed the development, saying Facebook had also announced that it would be opening an office in Lagos.

“Ghana got Twitter, Nigeria got Facebook (operational H2 2021). God be praised. Let’s be happy for each other. Not everything is fight, dears. Ghana, congratulations,” he tweeted.

Facebook’s African headquarters is resident in South Africa.